Part 21 (1/2)

Good talkers are always sought after in society Everybody wants to invite Mrs So-and-So to dinners or receptions because she is such a good talker She entertains She may have many defects, but people enjoy her society because she can talk well

Conversation, if used as an educator, is a tre, without an effort to express oneself with clearness, conciseness, or efficiency, e society s in a man It lies too deep for such superficial effort

Thousands of young people who envy such of theirtheir precious evenings and their half-holidays, saying nothing but the s which do not rise to the level of humor, but the foolish, silly talk which demoralizes one's ambition, lowers one's ideals and all the standards of life, because it begets habits of superficial and senseless thinking On the streets, on the cars, and in public places, loud, coarse voices are heard in light, flippant, slipshod speech, in coarse slang expressions ”You're talking through your hat”; ”Search me”; ”You just bet”; ”Well, that's the liets on arities we often hear

Nothing else will indicate your fineness or coarseness of culture, your breeding or lack of it, so quickly as your conversation It will tell your whole life's story What you say, and how you say it, will betray all your secrets, will give the world your true measure

There is no accomplishment, no attainment which you can use so constantly and effectively, which will give so much pleasure to your friends, as fine conversation There is no doubt that the gift of language was intended to be a reater accomplishment than the lers in our conversation, because we do not make an art of it; we do not take the trouble or pains to learn to talk well

We do not read enough or think enough Most of us express ourselves in sloppy, slipshod English, because it is so much easier to do so than it is to think before we speak, to ance, ease, and power

Poor conversers excuse theood talkers are born, not ood physicians, or good et very far without hard work This is the price of all achievement that is of value

Many a ely to his ability to converse well The ability to interest people in your conversation, to hold the expression, who knows a thing, but never can put it in logical, interesting, or coe

I know a business man who has cultivated the art of conversation to such an extent that it is a great treat to listen to hie floith such liquid, limpid beauty, his words are chosen with such exquisite delicacy, taste, and accuracy, there is such a refinement in his diction that he charms everyone who hears him speak All his life he has been a reader of the finest prose and poetry, and has cultivated conversation as a fine art

You may think you are poor and have no chance in life You may be situated so that others are dependent upon you, and you e, or to studyto; you may be tied down to an iron environment; you may be tortured with an unsatisfied, disappointed a talker, because in every sentence you utter you can practise the best form of expression Every book you read, every person holish, can help you

Few people think veryto express themselves They use the first words that co a sentence so that it will have beauty, brevity, transparency, power The words flow froement or order

Now and then we meet a real artist in conversation, and it is such a treat and delight that onder why the lers in our conversation, that we should make such a botch of the s, when it is capable of being made the art of arts

I have limpse of its superb possibilities that it has made all other arts seem comparatively unimportant to me

I was once a visitor at Wendell Phillips's home in Boston, and the music of his voice, the liquid charm of his words, the purity, the transparency of his diction, the profundity of his knowledge, the fascination of his personality, and his et He sat down on the sofa beside me and talked as he would to an old schoolmate, and it seemed to lish I have lish people who possessed that marvelous power of ”soul in conversation which charms all who come under its spell”

Mrs Mary A Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, and Elizabeth S P Ward, had this wonderful conversational charm, as has ex-President Eliot of Harvard

The quality of the conversation is everything We all know people who use the choicest language and express their thoughts in fluent, liquid diction, who impress us by the wonderful flow of their conversation; but that is all there is to it They do not ihts; they do not stimulate us to action We do not feel anyin the world, to be somebody, after we have heard them talk than we felt before

We know other people who talk very little, but whose words are so full ofbrain force that we feel ourselves multiplied many times by the power they have injected into us

In olden tiher standard than that of to-day The deterioration is due to the complete revolution in the conditions of modern civilization For their thoughts than by speech

Knowledge of all kinds was dissereat daily newspapers, no reat discoveries of vast wealth in the precious minerals, the neorld opened up by inventions and discoveries, and the great i-express age, in these strenuous times, when everybody has the er have time to reflect with deliberation, and to develop our powers of conversation In these great newspaper and periodical days, when everybody can get for one or a few cents the news and information which it has cost thousands of dollars to collect, everybody sits behind the azine There is no longer the saht by the spoken word

Oratory is beco has beco for a few dollars than kings and noble to find a polished conversationalist to-day So rare is it to hear one speaking exquisite English, and using a superb diction, that it is indeed a luxury

Good reading, however, will not only broaden the ive new ideas, but it will also increase one's vocabulary, and that is a great aid to conversation Many people have good thoughts and ideas, but they cannot express them because of the poverty of their vocabulary

They have not words enough to clothe their ideas and make them attractive They talk around in a circle, repeat and repeat, because, when they want a particular word to convey their exact , they cannot find it

If you are ambitious to talk well, you must be as much as possible in the society of well-bred, cultured people If you seclude yourself, though you are a college graduate, you will be a poor converser